Following the denial of its motion for summary judgment, ChoicePoint Services, Inc. appeals, contending that the claims brought by Ludwick Hiers are barred by res judicata. Because we agree, we reverse and need not reach ChoicePoint’s other enumerations. Summary judgment is proper when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. OCGA § 9-11-56 c. A de novo standard of review applies to an appeal from a grant of summary judgment, and we view the evidence, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Matjoulis v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp .1 This is the second time these parties have come before this Court in this dispute, which arose from a February 1998 letter agreement Hiers entered into with Advanced HR Solutions, a subsidiary of ChoicePoint. Pursuant to that agreement, Hiers sold ChoicePoint’s employment verification services for a commission and a $5,000 monthly consulting fee. The commission was structured so that Hiers would be paid $1.00 per call into the employment verification system, beginning one month after each client that he recruited “went live” by loading certain information into ChoicePoint’s database. Hiers’s commission payments were to continue for the longer of either the term of the client’s service agreement or three years.
In April 1999, ChoicePoint terminated Heirs’s contract after ChoicePoint sold Advanced HR Solutions to another company not a party to this suit which did not accept Hiers’s contract or otherwise hire him. In April 2000, Hiers sued ChoicePoint in the State Court of Fulton County under the following theories: action on an open account, breach of contract, quantum meruit, unjust enrichment, promissory estoppel, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud. Without stating a rationale, the state court granted summary judgment to ChoicePoint on all claims, which order Hiers appealed only with respect to his breach of contract claim, resulting in our opinion in Hiers v. ChoicePoint Services, Inc .2
